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Hm, seems to be a personal issue with you. Ok just pay your fair share - how about that?
Raise taxes on the rich, since they profit from our infrastructure more than anyone.
Yes, I agree with you, cut "entitlement programs" like subsidies for profitable corporations who don't need them - big oil, pharma, corporate farming. Remove tax breaks for outsourcing jobs, and reward companies who keep or create jobs here.
And yeah, pay 30% or more, you can afford it. Do your share of contributing to the running of the government. If you don't like the lower classes, and think they are lazy - too bad. They work harder than any "coupon-clippers".
You don't seem to get it.
Quote:
The reason we can’t repeat that historical combination of policies is that the aging of the population and rising costs for health care are making those large entitlement programs much more expensive than they used to be.
It is possible to keep taxes at their historical average share of GDP—but only by making substantial cuts relative to current law in the large entitlement programs that benefit a broad group of Americans at some point in their lives. Alternatively, it is possible to keep the laws for the large entitlement programs unchanged—but only by raising taxes substantially on a broad group of Americans.
Changes in other federal programs—besides the large entitlements—can affect the magnitude of the changes needed in taxes or that handful of large programs, but they cannot eliminate the basic tradeoff I’ve just described. Even if spending on all of those other programs—including national defense and a wide variety of domestic programs—fell to a smaller share of GDP than we’ve seen at any point since World War II, debt would still be on an unsustainable upward trajectory without substantial changes in taxes, the large entitlement programs, or both.
So it's not clear that the Bush tax cuts had that much impact on the deficits. What clearly did was increased spending, which by most measures grew at a fast pace during the Bush years.
Anyway, I would agree with your (presumed) view that the deficits were pretty bad under Bush and he deserves blame for that. Would you agree with me that the deficits under Obama, about 3 times those of Bush, are even more disastrous and that Obama deserves even more blame?
If you look at your own source, revenue fell from 2001 to 2004. In inflation adjusted terms, it took the height of the housing bubble, 2006, to reach 2001 income. That is ordinarily astounding, considering that the population grew during those years. Graphically, it looks like this:
A fair tax means everyone pays the same percentage of their income. It doesn't matter if it is 'easier' for one person to pay taxes. A fair tax means everyone pays the same percentage as everyone else. Whether it is easy to pay or not isn't a question that matters.
A fair tax means everyone pays the same percentage of their income. It doesn't matter if it is 'easier' for one person to pay taxes. A fair tax means everyone pays the same percentage as everyone else. Whether it is easy to pay or not isn't a question that matters.
The poor and lazy should be taxed much higher than the rich because they are nothing more than a burden on society. Why should the rich pay a higher percentage of tax? Because they work harder and smarter?
What about the working poor? Should burger flippers and janitors be taxed higher also? I once worked two jobs to pay the rent so that my landlord could work zero jobs. Should he be taxed higher or lower?
.And are you serious about social security? Social security has given 1/8 the return of the stock market over the course of its history. Try researching something before talking. SS, UI, welfare are programs that only help people too lazy to do something for themselves, and military is vastly over used. We shouldn't be the world police.
Social Security should be privatized, but how does it help only people too lazy to do something for themselves? What do you suggest people who are old and who can no longer work do for themselves?
What if we enact a fair tax (everyone pays the same %), and just don't spend money on useless programs like social security, welfare, UI, or military?
State and local governments redistribute income upward, so I want sufficient federal tax progressivity to have an overall flat tax. Regressive taxes plus a fair tax is still regressive. Fairness Fail.
That's just insane that they made $81 billion. That $81 billion should have been split between the other 313 million Americans so that everyone of them could buy a couple of new pairs of shoes.
You forgot the . Mark Zuckerberg walked away from the Facebook IPO a multibillionaire. Then the people who actually bought the stock started losing their shirts. Did Mark earn every dollar with which he walked away?
As many who have studied statistics or are into math know, what Mr. Levin says is meaningless because we don't have all the terms of the equation. We don't know what the total earnings are of the top earners. We don't know what percentage of their income they paid in taxes. We don't know what is meant by "taxes". Are deductions for paid foreign taxes included in the federal taxes? Are state, local, property and payroll taxes included? We also have no information on the bottom 50%, who they are, what their income is, what percentage of their income they paid in taxes: federal, state, local, school, property, payroll.
Mark Levin is intellectually disingenuous, in my opinion. You can make statistics say anything you want them to say when you don't give complete information.
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